This week has been very busy for us, with three straight
10+-hour days out in the hot, Ghanaian heat! Aside from teaching our classes,
we have gone out to visit both past recipients and then potential loan
recipients from our current classes.
We did double duty in Akokom with both collections and
business visits. In Akokom, David and Rachel visited Akosua Owusuaa. She
receved her first loan about six months ago to start a business selling banku
and kenkey at a road-side table in her home village. Not only has she
consistently made all of her payments on time and in full, but also she has
used the profits from this small and simple business to begin building a kiosk.
During the time that we were in Akokom, I watched a large number of customers come
through—she always had a line of people waiting to buy from her. Akosua is
hoping to get a second loan in the near future to help finish the funding of
her kiosk and business expansion so that she can have a small restaurant. Even
without a second loan, though, Akosua could potentially build her restaurant
over time. She is continuing to make profits that she is reinvesting into her
business every single month.
Pictured below is Akosua standing between her current table
and the kiosk that she is building.
With out large first-time loan class in Asamama now down to
about fifty, we have started to visit their businesses to get a better feel of
which students from the class we may want to fund. We visited a dozen
businesses on Tuesday, and the diversity of them is pretty large.